Author's notes:

I had to cut sooner than I planned, so Linda/Lucifer scene will be for another chap, as much as Lucifer POV. Sorry about that. (Still thinking of how I will tell the next events, I won't promise any other scenes until I make my decision).

This chapter is full of dialogues - Enjoy!

Also, thanks for the views, reviews & fav/follow. =3

Music

Porcelain | Skott (MrSuicideSheep)


MYTHOLOGISED UNPLEASANTNESS

5


From Trixie's questions to the strictly metaphorical arms of Morpheus, the Devil follows her effortlessly. He has haunted her dreams at night, has settled in her thoughts since she has woken up and has kept doing so since then.

It's more and more intense.

This morning's heavy 'settling' hasn't taken long to come. Chloe didn't even have time to get ready for it. Again.

"How's Lucifer doing?" Linda asks her.

Chloe inadvertently spills coffee on her counter and quickly soaks it up, as much annoyed by her reaction as by Lucifer's systematic settling in each of her conversations.

But what did she expect?

His return is very recent.

And it is a fair return, everyone asking her about Lucifer in exchange for their kind listening while he was gone. She can't ask them to not listen now.

"H-He's... mh," she mumbles. "Haven't you seen him since he came back?"

Linda shakes her head as the sun's rays coming through the living room window change the tops of her blonde hair to gold.

"Barely," she says.

"He didn't come to your place to see Charlie? Or Amenadiel?"

"He did, but he never stayed long enough to know how he was doing. I should be used to it," adds then the therapist. "He's been avoiding real conversations since the Beginning of Time."

"Since the 'Beginning of Time'?" repeats Chloe. She places two cups of steaming coffee on the cleaned counter. "How can you know?"

"Amenadiel." Linda smirks, her mischievous gaze is slightly blurry with the roasted steam rising from her cup. "He told me some juicy stories about him, from the time when they still were…" she quotes the last words in quotation marks with her free hand, perfectly imitating Amenadiel's pompous voice; "God's obedient soldiers."

Chloe smiles in turn, playing along. "If my brother could remove this obedient stick from his bloody arse for once!"

Her imitation was second-rate, but it still has the merit of making them laugh early in the morning. Chloe feels the weight in her chest lessen. It's not much, however it's more than she has hoped for these last months. Laughs against tears, long conversations against the heavy silences; Linda helped her escape from the void that threatened to destroy her.

Trixie is her daughter; Chloe is her mother. She couldn't resolve to impose her pain on her in addition to her absence.

Dan's her friend, but first and foremost, he's Trixie's dad. And one of them must take care of Trixie when one of them fails to do it. It had been her turn.

Ella is... Ella. A friend, but she couldn't understand what Chloe had been going through, in which state Lucifer's departure had left her. She hadn't even known why he'd left. If Chloe would have tried to explain it to her, Ella would have thought she had joined Lucifer in his weird method acting - He, the Devil and she, the Queen.

Amenadiel had been focused on his son lately. She can't blame him, especially after what happened. She might have lost the man - devil and angel - she loved, but he had lost his brother for Charlie's safety, for everyone's.

Mazikeen, then? A raging mad demon who's been abandoned by her former master and partner in earthly vacation until the last one, which had lasted longer than both of them could have foreseen. She'd been trapped on Earth, once again left alone among these emotional humans newly called 'family' when her first family had disappeared in a rustle of wings on a balcony.

Linda, on the other hand, is the only human she knows who has met the Devil. She'd seen him, listened to him, comforted him - some of the things Chloe had done as well. She had understood her weakness in front of the truth, she had really understood her. Turning to each other after that night had been only natural. They allow each other's weakness, strength and human mediocrity balancing from one to the other, according to their needs.

An escape.

A strength.

Let's go with the escape today.

"Clever"

"What's that?" asks Chloe, blowing on her cup.

"Answering my question with another one. That's clever," Linda congratulates her.

"Not so much if you saw it coming."

Linda shrugs, then puts her glasses up her nose. They have a scratch that wasn't there three days ago. Maybe Charlie's doing. He's as adorable as he's untenable sometimes. Something he surely gets from his celestial bloodline, at least that's what her friend thinks. But Chloe's opinion about it isn't the same, especially when one knows what Linda is capable of.

"I'm a therapist. I can't take credit for it."

"Speaking of, weren't you planning to go back to work this morning?" Chloe continues, blowing again and again without the cup collapsing.

She'd probably have to blow harder than that to wipe that suspicious look off her friend's face. She really is a second-rated wolf in front of Linda's brick-built features.

"Yes," she says, her suspicion is replaced by another feeling. "But I'm still reluctant to leave Charlie alone for hours."

"He won't be. Amenadiel is with him, right? You're worrying too much."

"I know, but I can't help it. It has a name, hasn't it?"

Chloe nods, smiling again. "Motherhood."

"Right! Anyway... I miss my work, I really do; but it's difficult to leave him for so long. I know Lucifer assured me that the demons were under control and that this new arrangement with his Father would prevent any further rebellions… I can't help but feeling anxious nonetheless, whenever I leave the house."

Chloe pauses when she hears Lucifer's name, her cup close enough to her lips for her to taste rather than blow the roasted aroma of the coffee. She makes eye contact with Linda, far from being fooled, so little 'blown away' by her friend's vain attempts.

"Another clever move of yours, changing the subject," she tells her.

Shrugging, Chloe lowers her cup to her chin. "I'm a cop, I can't take credit for it."

"You really don't want to talk about him or you just don't know what to say?"

Chloe sighs. Nothing to do with her previous attempts to collapse Linda's guess or to blow hot coffee for her sore throat from her restless night.

"Probably both."

Linda leans forwards, her forearms pressed against the counter and her hands around her cup. "Let's try with something simpler then. How you're doing lately?"

It takes a few seconds for Chloe to answer. "You said 'something simpler'," she mutters, looking away.

"It is. Its answer isn't, though."

"I see that you're more than ready to get back to work."

"Come on, Chloe."

She pinches her lips with shifting eyes, tapping her foot and shrugging. Her body answers for her, doesn't it? These are Lucifer's effects on her body and emotions, sometimes powerful, sometimes shifty.

"It's, mh... It feels like I'm completely messed up from the inside out. As if I'd lost everything I learned about me, about emotions and feelings so far - like I just 'regressed', somehow?"

"Do you have any examples in mind?"

"Yesterday. I came to Lucifer's defense. Dan just couldn't shut up about all the Mayan Temple thing and I—"

"There's nothing wrong with standing up for someone you care about with your ex, is there?"

"No, there's not but it's the way I did it that bothers me, Linda. I've been... I brought up the Palmetto case to shut him up. That has been behind us for a long time and I didn't hesitate to use it as a cheap shot here. For Lucifer." She shakes her head. "This isn't normal."

"There's nothing 'normal' whenever Lucifer is involved," says the therapist with sympathy. "Although your reaction here seems understandable to me, given everything you've been through lately."

Chloe continues, "Maybe. But other things happened."

"What 'things'?"

"These feelings when he's standing right next to me, when he's not or when he's gone. These thoughts crossing my mind, this desire coming out from nowhere… it's driving me nuts, like all the time!"

She sips her coffee, which has cooled down from her feelings and simple answers. She then notices her friend's smile. From the previous one, sympathetic, comes this amused gleam she knew so well. It's the kind of gleam that Linda is dying to share with others, that she needs to make them understand its meaning through long discussions first.

This is the consummate therapist's gleam.

"What?" she exclaims, sounding a bit annoyed.

"Nothing, it just sounds oddly familiar. I'd swear I know the definition of this symptom, it's on the tip of my tongue! What is it, hm?"

"Okay, stop. Linda… stop. This has nothing to do with… you know what."

"'With'?" repeats Linda, teasing her. "I don't know, but looks like you do."

"I hate you."

"Well, that's the antonym of what you know, Chloe."

She briefly shuts her eyes, taking a deep breath. "This isn't 'love' we're talking about! Well yes, but that's not just it; it's a-about…"

"Love?"

"Yes!"

Keeping up without letting Chloe think further about what she's saying, Linda insists, still smiling; "And it's bothering you, isn't it?"

"Of course it is!"

Chloe laughs, there's no joy in it, just the noisy exhalation of her fears, of these sensations which - even if Linda thinks otherwise - are more complicated than some 'simple' demonstration of love between her and the Devil.

"Things have gotten confusing since he's been back, Linda. My feelings; what I feel, what he feels. It's like there's no real boundaries between my 'human' love for him and this 'literal' love that binds us to each other, like he says. He didn't say much more about it. 'Literal love'..." she repeats lower. "What does that even mean?"

She looks at Linda who's giving her another sympathetic smile. "It's hard to explain."

"I get that. I—" She sighs, "I just wish he'd try to, as much as I'm trying to have a tiny grasp of all this."

Chloe knows she's being unfair, but… to be honest, she is not even sure she can control this. Of course, Lucifer didn't try to explain more, but she didn't try to find out more either since he came back.

She kept quiet about the rest. They both did.

|Two weeks earlier|

xx

She'd waited a few minutes.

Then ten, twenty, half an hour; until an hour has passed, and that another has started.

She'd waited a few more minutes, until another hour had passed.

Then she had knocked on the door.

"Lucifer?"

A few more minutes listening to the water flowing behind the door and she opens it, repeating her question to the curls of vapor stuck inside. "Lucifer?"

No answer, still this water flowing.

Chloe just stands there, she doesn't know what to do. Lucifer has been in the bathroom for so long that she wouldn't have been surprised if he turned into water himself, after so much time spent under that scalding flow that's seeping down her throat, the door barely ajar. She didn't try to bother him before this moment, aware that he needed time for himself once he mostly recovered from... well, from whatever might have happened down there.

She needed some time for herself, too.

After an entire day and night to watch him sleep, she must look like shit as well. There weren't disgusting remains of... of that 'something' from Hell on her, but she had a pretty good guess of what she looked like.

They were the ghosts of the people they left or saw leaving that night.

So, once Lucifer had disappeared in her bathroom to regain his former appearance under an endless flood of scalding water, Chloe had done her best to regain hers. It's like putting on an old coat; liked but forgotten in a dusty corner, the kind of clothing that you discover anew after years and years. And you can't even recall why you left it in a corner.

It's heavy, lightweight; it fills the emptiness within her, it turns it deeper too. It's a lot to 'come back' to yourself.

She puts her hand on the doorframe, still holding the handle with the other. Still swinging in the space between.

"Chloe..."

Swinging towards this drowned murmur, she comes in, not thinking once about him 'coming back to himself'. It's only when the door is closed that she becomes aware of her intrusion in his intimacy. Half-turned towards the door, she can see the empty corner of the tub where the shower head lets the water run abundantly.

Where is—

Her eyes catch a movement, it's brief. She looks at Lucifer just as briefly, he's sitting at the other end of the tub, his arms pressed against his knees; a firm, trembling mass of naked angel in her tub.

Her tub.

Naked.

Naked.

Chloe turns around sharply, her forehead pressed against the damp wood of the door. She shuts her eyes, although she knows she can't see anything from here.

"I-I… Sorry, I just—"

She breathes in, lets the vapour get inside her throat.

The bathroom has turned into a damn sauna, how can he even stay here without batting an eyelid?

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay. So... so, I'm gonna—" she stammers.

"'ld."

"What?"

A few seconds pass before she hears his voice again; hoarse, shaky. She's shaking too.

"C-cold."

Chloe turns around, his privacy totally put aside as she watches him more closely. Lucifer hasn't moved and keeps his face buried in his arms, which are shaking strongly despite the surrounding heat. God, she can almost see his pale skin having goose bumps from here.

How could she not have seen this earlier?

He trembled in his sleep, but she thought it was due to nightmares. His tremors had never lasted more than a few seconds, sometimes a minute moreover. He didn't say anything about it, let alone show anything when he opened his eyes - just this smile, his smile that she had nearly forgotten.

She didn't see.

"Damn it, Lucifer!" she hisses, as much to him as to herself. "Why didn't you say anything?!"

She turns off the shower head, then turning on the main faucet. Lucifer barely lifts his head from the trembling shelter of his arms to answer her. His lips haven't turned blue yet, but almost.

"I-I j'st...d-did."

Chloe rolls her eyes. "Right. Why didn't you say anything earlier?"

She pushes with her foot at his clothes scattered around the tub. Lucifer doesn't answer, the back of his skull pressed against the wall dripped of water unable to warm him up. He gulps, his neck muscles quivering, his gaze unfocused.

Holding back her frustration, Chloe checks the water temperature, urging Lucifer to stay awake. Calling an ambulance for the King of Hell who's suffering from severe hypothermia is the last thing she wants to do.

-xXx-

"Who would ever believe that the Devil prefers water to flames, mh?"

The so-called watery creature opens one eye, half a glance - lucid, hurt in his pride. A few drops of this privileged water rolls under his chin, then falls into the watery multitude below, the very one where he seems to have a good time.

His bathing lasts for a 'moment', judging by the cramp raising from Chloe's foot to her calf. Anyway, she's reluctant to move off the floor. She's good enough sitting here, looking at him relaxed enough, 'good enough' to look at her. Even if he still hasn't moved his temple away from the wall, even if it's just from one eye.

This is something.

It's him.

"This is hot water, Detective. It's devilish enough for any believer."

Hot or not, Lucifer shivers. He does so every now and then, despite the water temperature being well beyond human standards - Chloe doesn't even dare to dip a finger into it, her face is red enough from its vapour to think otherwise. Yet, he keeps shivering.

But he manages to reply to her teasing without chattering; he must be feeling better.

"You're sure this is hot enough for you?" she asks him.

Moving from her half-sitting position on the floor, mostly uncomfortable, she moves her hand towards the faucet before he even answers her. He grabs it halfway, heat and water wrapping around her palm. Lucifer's hand no longer trembles.

Chloe holds her breath.

She can still feel his hands stroking her cheeks, his fingers on her tear-stained chin. They were tears then. One water like another, another drips from their joined hands, joined to the water undulating around the Devil's muscular body.

Chloe lets her gaze linger on their fingers, Lucifer's more than hers. She lets her gaze slowly lift further; wrist, elbow and biceps. Right up to the line of his neck.

This is the second time they really, consciously touch each other.

"Don't bother yourself, love. It's fine."

Not freeing herself from his grip, she finally allows her eyes to move back to his face. Two eyes open to hers, ringed but keen. The second time they really look at each other, too.

She remembers to breathe.

"Where 'my love' goes?"

His expression changes instantly and he averts his gaze from hers. She has rarely seen him like this, hesitant and... a bit clumsy in his body language. The last time was when—

Wasn't it during their date?

"Detective. You look... beautiful."

It seemed like ages ago.

It was.

Probably more for him than for her, but it's all about perspective, right?

He lets go of her hand, then plunging his own into the water. Chloe's breathing doesn't make things easier for her. His is slow, so slow for her raging heartbeats. She watches him moving backwards, as much as he can in her tub, which was far too small for him. He leans his back against the edge, his bent legs piercing hot water, his movements followed by a slight lapping. She restrains herself from looking down, beyond this watery transparency. Between his legs, past his lower belly, as muscular as the rest.

She forgets how to breathe.

"I'd prefer not to make you feel uncomfortable, Detective," Lucifer tells her, not looking away from the steaming water.

She focuses on what he's saying, giving it sense, she reacts to it a few seconds late. He doesn't notice.

"I'm not, don't worry. I just... I just need time to get used to it."

Sitting on the edge of the tub and facing him, Chloe adds, "I— 'm still trying to get used to you being here, actually."

Lucifer lifts his chin, gazing at her for a long time. He shivers, forcing his tired features to allow half a smile on his lips.

"That makes two of us, Dect— Chloe," he corrects himself after a slight hesitation.

She smiles too.

"Feeling uncomfortable?"

He arches an eyebrow. "I'm the Devil, dear. I never feel this way."

"Obviously."

Chloe can't help but smile, it's almost painful. She reuses muscles that she has more or less willingly forgotten for a while. It is as unpleasant as exhilarating to feel what she's feeling right now. She feels unstoppable, she feels beatable. Exhilarating, exhausting.

Intriguing too.

The silence settling between them, Chloe takes a better look at Lucifer as soon as he closes his eyes. He looks like the Lucifer who left her at the penthouse. Less time than she thought might have passed in Hell, how can she estimate how long it has been for him anyway?

Time on Earth is relative.

Time in Hell is….

What's time there?

At least he'd been there as long as she was here, when she was crying for him, when she was seeing him everywhere around. She can tell it by seeing all these superficial wounds, these bruises - one's as big as a closed fist at the base of his neck, one as long as a finger on his right biceps. A deeper gash crosses his torso, a straight line, up to his ribs. It looks almost completely healed, it lightens the Devil's turbulent path.

He's had plenty of time to recover from wounds like these, so…

It's been more than six months, it must be. But how long exactly?

What other kind of wound would he have got after more time spent down there? What else would have happened to him if he hadn't come back to her? What if he never had?

"Why?" she asked aloud, a puzzled whisper after which Lucifer opens his eyes again.

"Why 'what'?"

"Why did you come back?"

Before he can misunderstand her question, Chloe leans forward, until she touches his elbow resting on the edge of the tub. She feels water and flames under her palm, without burning or drowning her.

"I'm... I'm happy - there's no word to express how happy I am to see you again, but I thought…."

She lets out a sigh, brought back to this painful moment.

"Don't go."

"I thought that you were gone for... for good?"

Is he here for good?

He's here, right before her, but... is it for good as well? She wouldn't let go of that 'coat', not again. Another day off 'him' would be one too much to bear for her. Chloe's taken by surprise by her own thoughts - what exactly is she thinking? She's not that desperate, she hadn't been for the last six months.

Grief, anger, abandonment, helplessness; yes.

But this despair roaring in the depths of her soul, it's... it's new.

"I was, indeed. I wasn't planning on coming back."

She reads many things in his eyes; regret, resignation, pain.

Her fingers squeeze his arm. And he doesn't want to leave. She sees, feels it with just a look; under water, through this fire his skin's releasing. It's going through her.

Still, it's about the same thing; another departure, she feels this too.

Burned, drowned; Chloe prefers to sink deeper - coward and desperate - instead of facing the inevitable truth once again. She has a lump in her throat but she pinches her lips, asks cowardly; "What changed then?"

Stroking his face with one hand, he looks for words. It doesn't seem to bother him if they don't talk about the least pleasant part. Chloe looks at his hand, his ring, gleaming with darkness - more than she remembers.

"Well, strictly speaking, nothing did. I doubt I can explain such intricate conception through human argot, to be honest."

Chloe frowns when she hears 'argot'. She sits up, pulling her hand away from his dialectical superiority.

"I doubt I'll ever be able to speak another argot," she takes offence. "I am human."

"More or less, darling," he whispers, a shadow crossing his gaze without erasing his amused expression.

Before she can question him further about this, Lucifer continues; "So far be it from me to question your intelligence, Detect— Chloe. You need to understand that angels - of whom I no longer am part, but are nevertheless where most of my knowledge comes from - don't have the same conception of the world as yours, even less the same language to explain it. Your vocabulary is as limited to your perceptions as our vocabulary is to ours. Although being the Devil awarded me a bonus here."

"Because Hell has its own language?" Chloe figures out.

"Precisely. You're speaking to the most rigorous Interspecies Encyclopedia of the Universe!"

"Splashing around in my tub," she adds.

Lucifer glares at her, outraged. "I am certainly not."

She arched an eyebrow. "Maybe you're right. I'm limited to my own perceptions, right?"

"Clearly…" he grumbles.

Although Chloe is amused by his grumpy look, she doesn't know what to think of this introduction, this universal lexicon that he doubts he can simplify for her. If she's not already aware of the gaping hole standing between her humanity and Lucifer's immortality, this kind of conversation puts things into perspective.

Perspective.

Perception.

"There must be a 'human perceivable' term to explain why you're here, don't you think?" she insists. "I need to know, Lucifer, I need to understand."

He sighs deeply, it points out how embarrassed he is even if she can't tell why. Will she ever be able to?

"Well, in human perceivable terms…" he says at last, not looking at her. "We're both enduring Persephone's mythologised I was told..."

Chloe blinks.

Once. Twice.

"Persephone?" It's all she manages to say from her actual human confusion. Quickly followed by; "'Both enduring'?"

"It's hard to explain, I told you, but the Persephone's myth is a starting point like any other, I guess. Persephone was the daughter of a goddess - again, according to your human perceptions—"

"So she wasn't?"

Chloe noticed that the myths and beliefs about the Devil are mostly superstitious and hateful nonsense. But does that mean that the rest is as much far away from the truth? History from centuries, millenia even… even from their human limited perception, really? They were right for some things though, some things they had told with a fair degree of accuracy.

God exists. Satan does exist, he's taking a bath in the steaming waters of her 'limited' tub.. Lucifer is indeed his Father's son, he did rebel against his Father. Eve is real so—

"She is, well... you are," then Lucifer reveals to her.

Chloe is totally lost. She shakes her head. "I-I don't... "

"This story is a 'myth' for humans, Uriel would have defined it as a 'possible pattern'. See? It's all about vocabulary."

"But what is it all about, Lucifer? And who's Uriel?"

Lucifer freezes, trembling and not moving the second after. His features harden.

"My brother. He was pretty gifted at defining these possible patterns and delivering them to others, whether they cared about his infuriating babbling or not. Persephone's story isn't about the past, nor lost human history - it's about a possible future."

Chloe notices how he used the past tense for his brother, but she feels this isn't the time to push him about Uriel. Lucifer's sudden tension alone is a sign for letting go. She's doing her best to follow the Devil's perception and that's enough to keep her mind busy, anyway. She almost regrets the void of the previous months.

"You mean... like the prophecy Kinley was obsessed about? Where exactly did it come from?"

"Once again, from a lack of vocabulary. Some humans can perceive more," explains Lucifer, more relaxed than before. "But perception isn't understanding, Chloe. We've seen it at our expense with the last prophecy. Stubborn as you all are, you couldn't help but put words to each of your discoveries; no matter how much your translation is under par, right?"

"Okay, okay, but—" she cuts him off. "What does Persephone's myt— pattern have to do with me?"

Persephone, Persephone. Persephone's myth; Chloe read it somewhere. Trixie had been fascinated by fairy tales, both old and new . She bought her a book a few weeks ago, about myths and legends from different civilizations. There was Persephone's story, vague memories of bedtime stories..

A kind woman. The God of the Underworld who had fallen in love with her and—

Panic-stricken, Chloe stares at Lucifer - the actual God of the Underworld, in love with her - a kind woman. "This isn't about me going to Hell, is it?"

He scoffs, although he seems offended by what she just said. Of course, Lucifer would never force her to come with him, anywhere; she knows he wouldn't. She knows he's true to his word, to her principles. He would never trample anyone's freewill underfoot.

But Persephone was... no,she's supposed to be held captive by the Lord of Hell, she will be Queen, eat some fruit or any other hellish food and she will help him to rule his kingdom. It's a possible pattern, their mythologised unpleasantness as he said earlier.

So….

"Never. I'd die before it happens, Chloe."

He hasn't stumbled over her name this time.

She noticed. So did he.

"No, it's about…." Lucifer hesitates, he clenches his fist on the edge of the tub before meeting her curious gaze. She urges him to continue with an arched eyebrow, which he does - not without first taking a deep breath.

Whatever he must reveal now, it seems to require all his breathing abilities.

"This is about our last... declaration."

Chloe gets what he means with his obvious discomfort and his shifting gaze. It's all about vocabulary, perception.

Their last declaration.

"I love you."

"Oh."

She frowns.

"O-Okay?" she answers back, nevertheless confused. "I— And is that a problem or... ?"

Lucifer smiles.

"It undoubtedly is for some people, yes. Michael made it quite clear when he took over my royal duties down there," he says casually, pointing to the purplish bruise on his neck.

"Wh—?! Michael?"

He shrugs, wincing as soon as he moves his scratched muscles.

"Another brother of mine, not the nicest. Nor the smartest. Just a winged mass of rage and blind devotion, if you ask me."

"But why?"

Resting his head on the edge, Lucifer lets out a sigh as soon as his neck is relieved from this painful tension. His eyes, already half-closed, notice Chloe's deeply upset expression.

"Why what, Detective?" he mumbles slowly. "Why is it a problem for Michael and my Father that we've declared our feelings for each other? Why did Michael express his displeasure with his fists? Or…"

He tries to hold back a yawn, fails and then blinks. "...why is he replacing me in Hell for a while? Choose your poison, dear."

Chloe's eyes are wide-opened, Lucifer's questions - or answers, she can't tell which vocabulary was close enough from his perception - swirling painfully in her mind.

Their 'love' is a problem f-for… God?! It's….

Oh, my G

Lucifer was talking about Persephone only five minutes ago!

Highlighting the difference setting between their perception is an understatement, this is Chloe's perception. She takes a deep breath, perceiving many fears and panic at the edge of her rational thoughts.

"I choose the three!"

A second yawn, totally free of control, tenses his features. He opens his mouth, his head lolling to one side - towards the wall-, then to the other, towards the edge of the tub.

"Well, I... That's a problem because I can't stay in Hell forever now that I'm literally yours, now that you're literally mine. It would have ended up badly for both of us- the Devil can't die on them, can he? Also, my royal duties took a very literal turn at the temple back then, so… a problem, it is for sure. L'ke Persephone."

His head chooses the wall, which is bigger and far more comfortable.

"Michael does love using his fists on me aaand... He's replac'ng me because…"

Eyes shut, Lucifer whispers his answer at the water's edge. Chloe stares at him, torn between annoyance and concern.

"Lucifer? Lucifer, hey!"

He barely flinches. "Hm?"

"'Because'?"

He breathes in and out slowly; already too far from her to catch him, neither to hold him for long. He can't even open his eyes again. He lets syllables modeling his lips, which already wears a peaceful sleepy smile.

"B'c'se…" he slurs."God s'id.. so. M'de a deal, Him 'nd I."

"A deal? What kind of deal? Lucifer?"

Lucifer stays silent, sleeping soundly in the cooled water. Her questions have exhausted him, so it seems; many things - including his brother Michael - have exhausted him. She looks at him, wondering what she should do now. Sleeping there until the water turns freezing cold isn't a good idea, especially since she knows he's vulnerable near her, but Chloe doesn't want to wake him up. Just… not yet.

His sleep had been full of nightmares the night and day before; he needs this. Even God seems to think so, for allowing him to come back to her.

For a while.

Lucifer said 'for a while'.

For a while, it's her single estimation. He's here for a while.

Chloe sighs, putting her concerns aside to watch him once again, himself free of any concerns, any possible patterns or lack of vocabulary for a while. She puts her hand on his cheek when he trembles once more, silencing it with her touch.

He's here.

It matches with her perceptions.

She can silence the rest for a while.


Here we go! More explanations about his return - slurred in his bath, but still. I knoooow, I love cliffhangers (even tiny one). I'll explain further through the story.

Next publication in a few weeks (it's holidaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy!)

Thanks for reading & see u soon!